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Mike Cunegin featured in Louisville Courier Journal

Former Allen County Council President and Fort Wayne police officer Mike Cunegin was the subject of a feature article in the Louisville Courier Journal. Mr. Cunegin was named a year ago by Governor Mitch Daniels to head the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

The profile was written by Courier Journal State House reporter Leslie Steadman Winebrenner, a former reporter for the Journal Gazette.

The job was in Indianapolis, where the agency is housed just across the street from the Indiana Statehouse. His family was in Fort Wayne, where two of his daughters were still in high school.

He couldn't decide. Finally, his wife, Earlene, took him aside and assured him the family could make it work.

So now, Cunegin said, he has two families: His wife, kids and mother in Fort Wayne, where he spends his weekends, and his Criminal Justice Institute staff in Indianapolis, where he lives in a downtown apartment during the week.

The article covers various initiatives Mr. Cunegin is pursuing. The article also mentions that the last session of the General Assembly closed the door on one law-enforcement tool: the use of checkpoints to enforce seat-belt law compliance.

Ms. Steadman-Winebrenner wrote:

Cunegin said that's too bad. Across the state, the checkpoints have led not only to seat-belt tickets but also helped police discover other crimes.

Once, in Delaware County, police at a checkpoint discovered a man was keeping a woman in the trunk of his car.
But Cunegin said police will adjust. The institute still will coordinate stepped-up enforcement of the seat-belt law.

"In Fort Wayne, we only did checkpoints one time," Cunegin said. "And we were still able to keep our enforcement numbers up."

The article is accompanied by a photo showing Mr. Cunegin with a bit more facial hair than shown in the FWOb stock photo above.
In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I was Mike Cunegin's campaign chair during his first campaign for County Council.